I'm having trouble finding much information on this guy's role in what happened, but what I can find makes it sound like he played a big part in making the decision to create the cheating software. He's an "engineer" but was with VW for decades and was in a leadership role when this stuff went down.

Obviously he still has a boss, but I doubt the boss outright told him to cheat. Smart companies don't break the law that way. They just give their people goals that can't be met legally, while wink wink telling them that legal compliance is important, and let them figure out how to reconcile it.

You don't know what sort of settlement is happening behind the scenes ..

This is why many academic institutions require a philosophy course for engineering majors. I had to take science, tech, and ethics.

I dunno, I kinda feel like this one is pretty clear-cut: 40 months in prison versus losing your job...

It's easy to call this clear cut when you don't know that persons situation and what losing their job would have meant to them at the time.

Not only that, but the dude apparently cooperated with the investigators.

Fuck the judicial system in the US.

Given the typical pattern of cooperation and plea deals, I assume his cooperation was in exchange for lesser charges and/or a relatively lenient sentence, i.e. it could have been much worse without.

Sure, but that doesn't mean it's any better.

"I'll only break your hand instead of cutting it off" doesn't mean you're getting a good deal.

Well he still broke the law(and not unjust ones either). Just because you cooperate doesn't mean you should get off free.

Your anger is misplaced: He IS guilty of wrongdoing (and doesn't dispute it), therefore, entitled to being held accountable, especially as an exec who led a related engineering division.

You seem to think he didn't actually do anything wrong. Why is that?

That's not my position.